UCL Qatar to hold first Spanish-language Public Lecture

On 11 March 2014 UCL Qatar will hold its first ever public
lecture delivered entirely in Spanish. Dr Jose Carvajal Lopez, Lecturer in
Islamic Archaeology at UCL Qatar, will present Una visión de al-Andalus: El pasado islámico de
España at the Fanar Islamic Cultural Centre
in Doha.

A follow up to the very popular recent public lecture A view from Al-Andalus: The Islamic Past of
Spain, this lecture offers a unique community for the Spanish speaking
community in Qatar to learn more about the Islamic heritage of Spain in their
native language. It will be delivered in association with Españolas en Qatar.

Before becoming the country that it is today,
Spain was part of the Dar al-Islam, and particularly the region called
al-Andalus. Beyond its historical reality, Al-Andalus has become the well-known
symbol of a utopia in which the coexistence of the three Abrahamic religions
(Islam, Christianity and Judaism) reached unparalleled splendour. How much of
this is true and how much is exaggeration? In this talk we will visit the
foundations of the utopia. We will explore the history and the cultural legacy
of the Islamic presence in Spain and we will see how Spaniards have made use of
this inheritance to build their own identity. In the end, we will see that even
if the utopia was not entirely true, al-Andalus indeed set an historical
example of coexistence (convivencia) amongst people of different religions but
with a same pursuit: to live in peace.